World Cup Qualifiers

antohan said:
Snow must be enjoying that!
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I must be enjoying losing? If we won the game we would have been top of the group with 4 games left (Switzerland with a game in hand though).

Should have done better. Slovenia scored from every chance. Ref was flawless in the first half and absolute rubbish in the 2nd half. Not at fault of course but he should have been better. Gave Kolbeinn a rubbish card that might get him suspended later.

No Gylfi and no Jóhann Berg made the offense (on paper) seriously worse but our strikers more than made up for it. They're really something. I recommend you guys check them out. One of them plays for Ajax, the other the runner up golden boot winner with Heerenveen.

Early on in the 2nd half our captain, Aron Einar Gunnarsson (Cardiff's top goalscorer for some reason) looked to have dislocated his shoulder. He went straight off the pitch into an ambulance. Eiður came on for him and that really altered our formation. He's still good by the way. They couldn't get the ball off him.

Credit to Slovenia though, they deserved the win based on their 2nd half performance. We still seriously lack at the back and we will be for years. Valter Birsa unsurprisingly was one of their better players. Not a team full of recognizable players but I was very impressed by Kevin Kampl. 22 years old, raised in Germany and plays in Switzerland. Should be on somebody's scouting list. Handanovic also made a phenomenal save.
 
Not the final result obviously but Iceland being realistically in the fight for a place at the WC. I assumed you would be at the game and it sounded like gripping end to end stuff. Don't let the disappointment of the final result take over the thrill and stomach sickness of being so close from quite a unique feat.

BTW, tough luck Ole. I did say it would be open end to end stuff, didn't I? :drool:
 
It's still not over. I always thought Switzerland was going to win the group. A win today wouldn't have made the difference.

Still don't think there would be a good chance for Iceland to qualify if the finish 2nd. Maybe a generous 1 in 20 chance. The great thing is that the team has improved massively under Lagerbäck. There's actually some coherent tactics being shown on the pitch. His lineups are always spot on. The coach before him always had one or two baffling picks. My only criticism of him is that he uses zonal marking when defending set pieces. I'm not a fan of it, Iceland executes it very poorly.

1 point behind Albania, 1 point ahead of Norway and 4 ahead of Slovenia with home games against Albania and Cyprus left, an already lost away game against Switzerland and an everything goes match against Norway away. 2nd place is still a very realistic finish but however it ends we'll go up a lot in the rankings which means better seeds for us. No more 2nd to last seeds. Get into a good position because our team will be much better in 4 years than it is now. Our best CB is 26, our captain is 24, two great strikers that are 23 and 24, our best left wing is 22, Gylfi is 23. Eiður is the oldest squad member by 3 years.
 
Good stuff. The seeding improvement would help but this is probably the weakest group you could ever get in a fair draw.

2nd would be grand, I reckon there are at least 3 groups whose second placed team would be doable (the rest would require something closer to a miracle). Underdogs indeed, but anything can happen in a two-leg knockout. You just can't afford to be so porous at home though.
 
I think 2nd place is quite doable but I'm not sure it will be enough. Not all 2nd placed teams will qualify for the playoffs. It's really shaping up to look like that it will be the case for this group.

We were do a fair draw considering we were placed in the group with the fewest teams, 3 qualifiers in a row. That meant that we, a team in 5th tier, didn't get to play any team below us and thus get some secure points for the ranking. One of the many flaws of the FIFA ranking.

edit: We used to be in that 5th tier. We wen't down to the 6th tier recently but now at the moment we're at the top of the 4th tier. Not bad for the 5th smallest nation in Europe.
 
After an away draw in Moldova we are pretty much done in these qualifiers. It's genuinely baffling how incompetent our staff is. We had a major tournament at our own turf last year, were drawn in a piss poor group - possibly the worst ever at Euro - and finished bottom of it. We are in a relatively poor group right now and all we've managed are home wins against San Marino and Moldova and a draw in Montenegro. I'd understand if we didn't have players to peform better but 3 of our players have recently been key for a Dortmund team that reached a Champions League final, others are playing on a regular basis for respectable European teams in good leagues yet we are left with a 1-1 draw against freaking Moldova.
 
Sarni said:
After an away draw in Moldova we are pretty much done in these qualifiers. It's genuinely baffling how incompetent our staff is. We had a major tournament at our own turf last year, were drawn in a piss poor group - possibly the worst ever at Euro - and finished bottom of it. We are in a relatively poor group right now and all we've managed are home wins against San Marino and Moldova and a draw in Montenegro. I'd understand if we didn't have players to peform better but 3 of our players have recently been key for a Dortmund team that reached a Champions League final, others are playing on a regular basis for respectable European teams in good leagues yet we are left with a 1-1 draw against freaking Moldova.
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Think you guys didn't do enough to make Obraniak comfortable within the Poland set-up. He was your main creative outlet

My Serbia is out after a defeat in Belgium. Shame we were drawn in a tough group, once again we miss out on a major tournament despite one of the best defences in the world (Ivanovic-Subotic-Nastasic-Kolarov) and a couple of great players coming through (Matic, Markovic, Tadic). Sadness.
 
antohan said:
Not the final result obviously but Iceland being realistically in the fight for a place at the WC. I assumed you would be at the game and it sounded like gripping end to end stuff. Don't let the disappointment of the final result take over the thrill and stomach sickness of being so close from quite a unique feat.

BTW, tough luck Ole. I did say it would be open end to end stuff, didn't I? :drool:
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TO be honest Antohan, I also put money on a draw after Argentina missed their second golden chance of the game when the keeper made that double save so I am about even on yesterday. The odds on the draw dropped significantly after the double sending off. The stream I was watching pretty much died after Messi came on so did not watch the last 25 minutes but Aguero's second offside goal did come up as counting for five minutes on the William Hill site on the 73rd minute:lol: so I thought I was up for about 5 minutes. It was a fun game to watch but Argentina should have won comfortably with the chances they had. It was abit like watching United vs West Ham on the final day of 94/95 with the chances they wasted.
 
Nani Nana said:
Think you guys didn't do enough to make Obraniak comfortable within the Poland set-up. He was your main creative outlet

My Serbia is out after a defeat in Belgium. Shame we were drawn in a tough group, once again we miss out on a major tournament despite one of the best defences in the world (Ivanovic-Subotic-Nastasic-Kolarov) and a couple of great players coming through (Matic, Markovic, Tadic). Sadness.
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It's really stupid, Obraniak said he won't play again under Fornalik and there's just not enough creativity in the middle without him. I think he's going to stick to his word though but what could help us is a very probably Fornalik's departure as a coach - I think he's nearly done after last result and van Basten, Tardelli and Stevens have already inquired about the job apparently. I'd like us to go for a foreign coach because there's simply no quality in our domestic football when it comes to management. The last time we were ever solid was under Beenhakker but press eventually cast him out.
 
Just seen that its goal difference no not head to head that decides ties in World Cup qualifying, makes me feel slightly better about England's chances
 


Medunjanin scored a cracker last night.
 
Snow said:
I think 2nd place is quite doable but I'm not sure it will be enough. Not all 2nd placed teams will qualify for the playoffs. It's really shaping up to look like that it will be the case for this group.

We were do a fair draw considering we were placed in the group with the fewest teams, 3 qualifiers in a row. That meant that we, a team in 5th tier, didn't get to play any team below us and thus get some secure points for the ranking. One of the many flaws of the FIFA ranking.

edit: We used to be in that 5th tier. We wen't down to the 6th tier recently but now at the moment we're at the top of the 4th tier. Not bad for the 5th smallest nation in Europe.
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Only one second team doesn't qualify for playoffs. And at the moment that team is Albania (from the same group as Iceland). It will be a tough luck for the team that finishes in the second place (Albania, Iceland or Norway) if they won't get in playoffs because of the rule of the worst second place team. Still, four matches to go, everything can happen. Switzerland is now the clear favorite after the yesterdays result and they will be 4 points ahead of Albania after they play the dead rubber against Cyprus.
 
Seferovic with a 90th minute goal courtesy a lovely through ball from Shaqiri to top a disgusting Cypress side who came to just foul after foul. Hopp Suisse!
 
According to the match stats, Cyprus had one more foul than Switzerland. Switzerland are more disgusting imo. Granit Xhaka is a little bitch that does nothing but whine and dive. Lichtensteiner is at the top of the class in bending rules. Behrami is one of them divers who are also prone to awful tackles. Surprised me just how much Switzerland players dived.
 
Just seems that two teams that are playing wouldn't be level on foul stats if one was so very much worse than the other.
 
For feck sake Switzerland, there was no need to win the match. And that Cyprus team is fecking useless.
 
Probably the most inept performance I've ever seen from our national team. So many defensive feck ups it's unbelievable.

Hopefully we'll see a new generation step up, no need to keep playing players like Rommedahl and Lars Jacobsen since they won't feature at the next Euro's.
 
In fairness, Armenia is widely considered to be one of the best teams in the world
 
I just fear how we'll do against the European powerhouse Malta who managed to beat Armenia 1-0 away, we're getting whooped.

Bright side is we're just embarrasing us while only our nation are watching rather than doing it at a World Cup I suppose.
 
We could do with attackers like Movsisyan and Mkhitarya.
 
Pulls a similar surprised face as he did when he talked himself into that second yellow at OT all those seasons ago. Of course that could just be his cnutish face in general :confused:
 
No work tomorrow, so could watch this Mexico vs Costa Rica and see if Hernandez can keep his top international record up. Watched the Equador vs Argentina game.
 
Did the driver have a hand on Mascherano's ankle or something? Can't really see where the hand is in that video, but his arm seems to be in a bit odd position. Not that it excuses Mascherano of course - he's being an idiot as always. Has to be escorted off the field by several team-mates and staff members too :lol:

One thing I love about South American football is that they always seem to have police in full riot gear by the sideline. What the feck do they expect the players to do to warrant that? Then again, you have players like Mascherano there - I get it now!
 
Snow said:
According to the match stats, Cyprus had one more foul than Switzerland. Switzerland are more disgusting imo. Granit Xhaka is a little bitch that does nothing but whine and dive. Lichtensteiner is at the top of the class in bending rules. Behrami is one of them divers who are also prone to awful tackles. Surprised me just how much Switzerland players dived.
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You obviously didn't watch that match. I'm not a fan of Switzerland but by the end of the match I wanted them to win so badly; Cyprus were infuriating. Time wasting, feigning injury and generally making the game horrible to watch. They got what they deserved.
 
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